


Out of Control with Ryan

by beethechange



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Blow Jobs, First Time, Getting Together, M/M, Pining, Ryan is a mess, The Sims
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-29
Updated: 2018-08-29
Packaged: 2019-07-04 07:42:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15836814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beethechange/pseuds/beethechange
Summary: “Are we a couple in this game?”“A couple of scoundrels!” Ryan says. Shane smiles a patient little smile and lets Ryan dig his own grave. “Who needs labels nowadays, isn’t that kind of old-fashioned? Like, what is acoupleanyway? I didn’t, I just, they starteddoing thiswithout my permission. I don’t control Sim Ryan’s life.”“Ryan,” Shane says, and Ryan stops babbling. “Ryan, you do. You literally control Sim Ryan’s life. That’s the entire point of The Sims.”Shane’s got him there, Ryan has to admit.





	Out of Control with Ryan

**Author's Note:**

> me: In Control with Kelsey is so great, i wanna write this Sims prompt  
> also me: has played The Sims exactly once  
>  _also_ also me: gonna make shit up ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

*

Ryan’s not quite sure what makes him click “purchase” on The Sims 4, one night when he’s up way too late dicking around on the internet and pretending he’s still awake because he wants to be.

His and Shane’s season of In Control with Kelsey wrapped a couple of weeks ago, and he just—misses it, is all. There was something oddly satisfying about watching all the little Sim versions of his friends go about their little Sim lives, and knowing he had the power to make crazy shit happen to them. Like being God, but in a not-creepy way. It seems like the kind of mindless entertainment that will help him shut his brain off for a while.

There’s also the part where, if someone annoys Ryan at work or grabs the last La Croix from the canteen fridge, he can go home and make them swim themselves to death. It could be a useful stress-management tool.

So one night, on a whim, he downloads the game on his own laptop.

He tries to create his Sim self, but he’s terrible at it, too unfamiliar with the controls and too eager to get to the fun parts to figure them out. That’s when he remembers that Kelsey had been able to find fan-made Sims of the Worth It guys, all ready to be dropped in-game.

Ryan searches the gallery for “Unsolved” and there are lots of results. He scans the digital figures with a critical eye. He knows he and Shane have weird faces, but it shouldn’t be this difficult to find decent likenesses. Although they’ve all put Shane in a red checkered button-down, which is on-brand.

He picks the best option and downloads it. If he doesn’t pay too much attention to the specifics because he’s caught up in the aesthetics, well, that’s on him.

Then he gets on a roll. He starts downloading other Buzzfeed employees and alums; the Try Guys and the Worth It dudes and the women of LadyLike, and all the stand-alones he can find. Soon he’s got a whole town populated with his friends and coworkers.

He notices that when he moves Sim Ryan into some sweet new digs, Sim Shane comes too. Maybe it’s because he downloaded them together, or maybe even the game somehow knows that when you get one ghoulboy you get a second ghoulboy free of charge.  

But it’s chill. He doesn’t want Sim Ryan to be lonely, after all. Ryan just hopes that Sim Shane’s a decent cook, if they’re going to be roomies.

*

Ryan gets into a routine. His days and evenings are busy, filled with work and friends and family. If he comes home and goes to sleep, well, that’s great. But his nights, his insomnia nights in particular, are Sims Time.

He runs through the chaos play pretty quickly, lighting things on fire and drowning people and adopting five little wiener dogs that are constantly on the brink of destroying his house.

Soon, though, he starts to get genuinely invested, like somebody’s maiden aunt watching soaps and yelling at the tv on a weekday afternoon. He doesn’t understand how most of the controls work, and he doesn’t really get most of the stats either, but he’s starting to care about Sim Ryan’s life more than is strictly healthy. He starts to think of Sim Ryan as a character with his own feelings and motivations, someone beyond Real Ryan’s control, so he’ll put the game on auto and just…watch it all unfold.

Ryan finds a Ghost Hunter career mod, which he gleefully installs. He tries to get Sim Ryan to hit on some of the cute non-Buzzfeed Sims that are wandering around the game, but it never seems to take. Sim Ryan seems decidedly uninterested.

Maybe Sim Ryan is just focusing on his career right now. Nothing wrong with that.

*

Only Ryan is eventually forced to admit that that’s not quite true either. Sim Ryan isn’t uninterested in boning down. He’s interested in boning down, specifically, with Sim Shane and Sim Shane _only_.

Ryan’s half-paying attention, trying to toss popcorn into his mouth, game going in the background, when he gets his first clue. Sim Ryan and Sim Shane are hanging out watching some movie. Sim Shane says something to Sim Ryan, and Sim Ryan just…lights up, little bursts of pink hearts popping up on the screen.

It’s nice that Sim Ryan’s in touch with his feelings, Ryan thinks. That’s healthy, non-toxic masculinity in action. More guys should be more like Sim Ryan. Hell, maybe _Ryan_ should endeavor to be more like Sim Ryan. Just two bros, hanging out on a couch in the home they share together, talking about their feelings and—

And then Sim Ryan and Sim Shane are—are kissing, they’re making out, just really going at it right there on the couch in their stylish Sim house, and Ryan’s gaping at his computer screen, melted butter and salt all over his hand.

“Okay, well that’s just…”

Ryan clicks around, smearing butter on the keyboard. For the first time he notices a little stat bar at the top of the screen, filled almost all the way to the end with pink. He doesn’t know what _that’s_ about, but he’s starting to get the sense that maybe he should have read some sort of how-to guide before making this his relaxing hobby of choice. He is not, currently, _relaxed_.

He clicks on Sim Ryan, to see what his options are. He has a feeling “throw a tantrum, slap Sim Shane across the face for taking liberties with his person, and stomp out” isn’t going to be one of the options.

Sim Ryan is feeling “flirty” and “energized.”

“Oh, fuck off, sir,” Ryan says out loud at the game. Sim Ryan and Sim Shane are just sitting there watching their movie—Mission Impossible, probably—and holding hands like _assholes_. Ryan himself hasn’t felt “energized” in approximately three hundred years, and he hasn’t held hands with someone in almost that long. Ryan isn’t sure about Sim Ryan’s taste, but his cozy little perfect life is starting to piss Ryan off.

Two nights later, Ryan’s clicking around when he notices that one of the options for Sim Ryan and Sim Shane is “Woohoo.” Maybe it’s been there the whole time and he’s just never noticed it. Maybe he’s noticed it and pretended not to notice it.

He thinks about it. He thinks about it for a good, long while. He goes for an evening run around the neighborhood, and he takes a shower, and he makes himself a big bowl of spaghetti, and he contemplates.

Ryan doesn’t know if Sim Ryan has really thought this through, is the main thing. Sim Shane is Sim Ryan’s roommate, which could get awkward; Sim Shane accompanies him on some of his ghost hunting expeditions, so that’s work all tangled up in it too. Ryan doesn’t know how Sim Ryan feels about casual Woohooing. It’s just all a lot, and maybe Sim Ryan doesn’t need that kind of stress in his life.

Ryan puts his bowl in the sink, and he grabs a beer from the fridge, and he presses that “Woohoo” button because now that he’s aware the option is there he has to see what it looks like. Then he just sits there, sweating and sipping his beer and watching like a creep as Sim Ryan and Sim Shane bump fists and then jump into bed and under the covers. The bed starts shaking like it’s going to bring the house down, and pink hearts come pouring out, and it’s like a car crash that Ryan can’t look away from.

The little fireworks go off, signifying climactic success, and Ryan feels like the world’s biggest pervert. This is worse, by far, than seducing a ghost in a bush in front of millions of viewers, even though there’s no one here to witness it but him.

Is he imagining it, or does Sim Ryan look… _smug_?

“Look, you,” Ryan starts, and then he realizes he’s talking to the computer game version of himself, who has just finished fucking the computer game version of his best friend and looking really goddamn pleased about it, and he shuts his mouth tight.

He turns the computer off and he goes to bed, but he doesn’t fall sleep for a long time.

Maybe he should get a dog, or learn a new skill. Maybe he could be the kind of person who fixes up cars or grows organic vegetables, instead of the kind of person who does whatever the hell this is.

*

Ryan’s not here to judge Sim Ryan, if this is what Sim Ryan has decided he wants. It’s not his business to tell Sim Ryan how to live his life. He just wants Sim Ryan to be happy.

It doesn’t seem like a bad life, when Ryan thinks about it all stretched out, the whole greater than the sum of its parts. Sim Ryan owns his own home, and he’s got his ghost hunting, and his friends. If he wants to get laid and he’s not particularly interested in going for the Sim Margot Robbie that Ryan downloaded recently on a hopeful whim, Ryan’s not going to push the issue.

He just wishes that Sim Ryan would stop ruining _his_ life in return. As a courtesy.

What Ryan wants is to stop seeing little pink hearts floating above Shane’s giant head at work now, sometimes. Shane doesn’t even look that much like Sim Shane, so there’s no reason—no reason at _all_ —that Ryan should look at his coworker bent over his computer, headphones askew over one ear, and go so red in the face that Freddie asks if he’s choking on his sandwich.

“Hold up one finger if you need the Heimlich maneuver,” she calls over to him, and Ryan coughs and scurries to pretend that he wasn’t just staring at Shane. He lifts his middle finger in answer, and Freddie cackles.

“Shane, your boy needs a good Heimliching,” she says, wiggling her fingers and aiming a knowing, twinkling grin in Ryan’s direction. What a monster.

Shane pulls his headphones off all the way and turns to look at Ryan, smiling that crooked, kinda jacked-up smile that Ryan would commit actual murder to earn, if Shane asked.

“Vigorous abdominal thrusting,” he says. “My specialty.”

Ryan vows to find a way to kill off Sim Ryan. Ryan wants to create a Sim Ricky Goldsworth who will come hunt OG Sim Ryan down and assassinate him, while on the shitter if possible. He Googles “can you assassinate people in the Sims,” which is helpful only in that he discovers he could kill Sim Ryan by sending him in a failed rocket expedition to space. That’s a solid second choice.

“Eat your heart out, Elon Musk,” Ryan mutters.

“Pardon?” Shane asks.

“Don’t worry about it.”

Except that night, when he’s lying in bed unable to sleep, and he gets up and goes to his computer, he doesn’t mercilessly execute Sim Ryan the way he deserves. Instead, Ryan discovers that it’s possible to Woohoo in a _tent._

After, when Sim Ryan and Sim Shane are lying on the grass looking up at the stars, no doubt contemplating the rich tapestry of their relationship and the impossible wide vastness of the universe, Ryan chews his lip and fidgets. He refuses to allow for the possibility that he’s hard in his pants right now because of some animated hearts, smoke machine effects, and cartoon grunting.

He re-downloads Tinder on his phone and spends some time swiping right on every woman he’s even half-attracted to. Then he goes into his settings, clicks on “Show Me Men and Women,” and spends some time swiping right on a few dozen guys who look nothing at all like Shane, just for good measure. 

Ryan sets his phone down and jerks off, not thinking about what it would be like to lie on a patch of grass, his head on Shane’s stomach, feeling his slow up and down breathing. Certainly _not_ thinking about rolling around in a sleeping bag in a tent with someone much too tall for the sleeping bag.

Ryan doesn’t even like camping.

In the morning, Ryan deletes Tinder again. He doesn’t delete The Sims. He wonders if Sim Ryan and Sim Shane are going to live a whole life together, right before his eyes. If they’ll get married and adopt little Sim babies and get old and die holding hands like that old couple on the Titanic, while Ryan just sits and watches and does nothing.

*

**Sunday, August 26, 2018  
4:28 pm**

_ryan bergara:_ help me kelsey wan kenobi you’re my only hope  
  
_Kelsey I:_ What’s up?

 _ryan bergara:_ ive been playing the sims on the dl and i’m p sure sim ryan is trying to ruin my life and i need u to tell me how make him stop

 _Kelsey I:_ …In what way is he ruining your life?

 _ryan bergara:_   in every way

 _Kelsey I:_  ??

 _ryan bergara:_ mostly in the way where he’s obsessed with sim shane even though i keep trying to tempt him with hot actresses

 _Kelsey I:_ lol

 _Kelsey I:_ Sorry bud, you’re on your own with this one.

 _Kelsey I:_ …lolololol

 _ryan bergara:_ kelsey no u have to help me fix this

 _Kelsey I:_ Only you can figure this one out, young Padawan. Search your feelings, you know it to be true.

 _ryan bergara:_ fuck offffffff I’m older than you

 _Kelsey I:_    :)

*

It’s all fine, it’s all under control, until Shane pops by one night to pick up the hoodie he left in the Lyft they shared the last time they went out for drinks with coworkers.

Ryan’s been “forgetting” to bring the hoodie to work all week, in the sense that he’s been wearing it in around his apartment and one time he fell asleep in it and one time he jerked off with it over his nose, the scent of Shane filling his head and sending him over the edge with dizzying speed.

But it’s all fine.

What’s less fine is that when Ryan gets up to answer the door, he forgets to close his computer. He leaves his computer open on the coffee table, The Sims running on it, while he goes to hand off the hoodie to its rightful owner.

Shane’s standing there on the landing outside Ryan’s apartment, unreasonably tall and lanky and crinkle-eyed, and Ryan invites him in for a beer. It’s the polite thing to do, since Ryan’s made him come all the way out just to pick up his own hoodie.

Shane pauses for a second at the offer, and then he says, “Yeah, I could have a beer,” and eases his way into Ryan’s living room.

Ryan disappears around the corner to grab them beers. He’s on his way back out, one hand on the door of the fridge and one grasping the necks of two sweating bottles, when Shane says—and this is going to be the great tragicomedy of Ryan’s life, he’s sure of it— “Oh, have you been playing The Sims?”

Ryan’s heart skips a beat in his chest. His hand freezes on the door of the refrigerator.

“No,” he says, which is not the correct answer, in that it’s obviously a lie. Shane’s sitting on his couch right now, The Sims open in front of him. Now Shane’s going to wonder why Ryan would bother lying about it, and he’s going to look closer.

“Sweet, a jacuzzi,” Shane exclaims, and Ryan knows his goose is well and truly cooked. “Oh look, it’s us! We’re livin’ the life, Ryan.”

And then Shane doesn’t say anything else for a long time.

Eventually Ryan unfreezes enough to pry his fingers off the fridge door. He rounds the corner. The very least he can do is face this like a man, straight-backed and—well, not proud, but perhaps not a train wreck of a human either.

Shane’s watching the computer screen, intent. Somehow not knowing for sure what Shane’s seeing is even worse than knowing, so Ryan throws himself down heavily next to Shane on the couch and takes a peek for himself.

Sim Ryan and Sim Shane are in the hot tub, where Ryan left them, but now things have gotten noticeably steamier, in the sense that they’re kissing and there’s steam everywhere because it’s a hot tub. Shane cocks his head to the right, taking in all the various stats bars that Ryan still hasn’t bothered to understand, and then he right clicks and hits the “Woohoo” option before Ryan can stop him. Sim Ryan and Sim Shane really go for it then, those traitors, and Ryan can only watch in silent horror as Sim Ryan pounces on Sim Shane and tugs him under the water.

 _Enjoy it_ _while you can, you horny fuckers,_ Ryan thinks. _When he leaves, you’re done for._

Little bubble hearts starting popping out of the tub like oil from a hot pan, floating off into the clear blue sky.

“That’s not sanitary,” Shane observes. And then: “Also, a real drowning hazard.”

“Well that was weird! That’s never happened before,” Ryan lies through his teeth, shoving Shane’s sweatshirt in the general direction of Shane’s lap. “Anyway, here’s your hoodie, sorry I kept forgetting it, bye.”

Shane sets the hoodie aside and looks at him. He doesn’t seem mad, just politely confused.

“Are we a couple in this game?”                                   

“A couple of scoundrels!” Ryan says. Shane smiles a patient little smile and lets Ryan dig his own grave. “Who needs labels nowadays, isn’t that kind of old-fashioned? Like, what is a _couple_ anyway? I didn’t, I just, they started _doing this_ without my permission. I don’t control Sim Ryan’s life.”

“Ryan,” Shane says, and Ryan stops babbling. “Ryan, you do. You literally control Sim Ryan’s life. That’s the entire point of The Sims.”

Shane’s got him there, Ryan has to admit.

“I was minding my own business one day and they just started kissing,” Ryan confesses, all the fight going out of him, making his shoulders slump. “And they seemed really happy, so I was like, fine.”

“They seemed really…happy,” Shane repeats. And then: “Did you download these Sims from the internet? Ryan, this is important: did fans make these Sims?”

“Yeah, I couldn’t figure out how to make them look like us, so—”

Shane shakes his head. “Ryan, Ryan, Ryan.”

Ryan’s going to need Shane to stop saying his name _now_ or he’s gonna have a meltdown.

“ _Ryan_. The fans, bless them, are perverts. You know this. You can’t just go downloading content willy-nilly, it’s not safe out there. I guarantee that at least 90% of the Ryans in that Sim gallery have been tailor-made to want to fuck at least 90% of the Shanes in that Sim gallery.”

Shane’s clicking around now, looking at various stats and finding toolbars Ryan didn’t even know existed.

“Yeah, look, see? These Sims are married. They’re husbands. So, designed by romantic perverts, then.”

 _But I was going to plan Sim Ryan such a nice wedding_ , Ryan thinks wistfully, and then he bats it down in favor of the more pressing revelation.

He lets out a deep breath, pushing a relieved laugh out with it.

“Oh thank god. I thought the game knew—”

Ryan stops cold. He’d almost said _I thought the game knew what I wanted and was taunting me with it_ , but then he realizes that is an impossible thing to say for two reasons. The first is that it makes him sound like a crazy person, because this is real life and not _Jumanji_. The second, and much more crucial reason, is that it would give the whole sad, sorry game away.

Ryan’s really not ready to talk about this yet, he’s not ready for these to be words he says out loud, and he’s not ready for Shane to be the person he says them to.

“What did you think the game knew?”

Ryan just shakes his head, tight-lipped and furious at himself.

Shane sits back, pressed against the back of the couch, and takes him in. His eyebrows knit together when he realizes that Ryan’s abruptly gone from the manic, joking sort of upset to the quiet kind that’s so much more perilous. Shane puts his hand out, onto the couch cushion between them, and lets his palm rest against it.

“Oh,” Shane says. “Oh, _Ryan_. Hey.”

“Stop saying my name like that,” Ryan says. “Just, just stop it. I can’t do this if you keep saying my name like you’re my teacher and you’re disappointed I got a math problem wrong on the board.”

“Do _this_? I don’t even know what _this_ is,” Shane says. “I know what I _think_ it is, which is that you’ve been accidentally-on-purpose writing Sims…fanfiction, or whatever, of us to explore your latent bi-curiosity, and now you’re embarrassed that I caught you at it.”

It’s uncomfortably close to the truth, uncomfortably on-the-nose in that way that Shane often can be. Ryan curses how observant he is, and how well he knows all Ryan’s tells by now.

“Yeah, probably, but you could’ve let me get away with it,” Ryan snaps. “That would have been the kind thing to do. You don’t have to pounce on everything.”

Shane scrubs his hands over his face, through his hair, like he’s too tired to be doing this right now.

“Shit. Fair. I didn’t think this was going to be that, or I wouldn’t have.” Shane takes a deep breath. “Look, I think it’s really normal to try to find safe ways to work through stuff, and it’s not a big deal, so—”

“Safe?” Ryan interrupts. This whole thing feels the opposite of safe. “Do you think I think you’re _safe_?”

Ryan can’t believe this. Rarely, if ever, has he seen such a smart person miss the point so spectacularly. If he has to sit here and listen to Shane lecture him about _projection_ and _outlets_ and _it’s okay if these boners are confusing_ , like he’s Ryan’s one-man support-group for bisexual feelings instead of the direct cause and primary focus of them, Ryan’s going to lose his whole-ass mind.

“I’m going to the bathroom to yell at myself in the mirror about how fucking stupid you’re being right now,” Ryan says to Shane. “And when I come back out, you won’t be here. See you Monday.”

Shane gives him a little wave, and Ryan flounces to the bathroom in a huff, leaving Shane on the couch.

*

Ryan sits on the toilet, head in his hands, listening for the front door so he knows the coast is clear. At least fifteen minutes pass, and he doesn’t hear the door.

Finally he gets bored of waiting and he opens the bathroom door.

“Are you still out there?” he yells down the hall.

“Yes,” Shane yells back. “I’m trying to make Sim Us Woohoo in the rocket ship. Come help.”

Ryan almost can’t believe this, except that he knows Shane, knows him like the back of his own hand, so he _can_. He thought he’d been pretty firm, but Shane has a way of just selectively not hearing things he’s not interested in hearing. Ryan’s had to explain the scientific principles behind the spirit box at _least_ twenty times now.

Ryan pads back down the hall, sheepish. Shane’s right where Ryan left him, on the couch, and sure enough he’s bent over the computer.

“Maybe they can’t Woohoo again right away. Maybe Sim Shane is older than trees, like Real Shane.”

“I don’t think Sims have refractory periods,” Shane says absent-mindedly, clacking away at some cheat code or another. “I think they can just Woohoo forever, until they die. Oh yeah, there it is! Sit down, Ryan.”

Ryan sits down. The rocket blasts off, leaving an enormous trail of pink smoke and pink hearts in its wake. As metaphors go, it’s a little on-the-nose, but Shane looks pleased with himself.

“So when we last saw our heroes,” Shane says, “you were going on about things being safe and I was, I think, accidentally being an ass. Any clarity you can give me on either of these points would be…would be welcome.”

“With Sim Shane, Sim Ryan is flirty and energized,” Ryan says, like that answers any questions. “Plus signs out the wazoo. I haven’t felt that way about someone in a really long time. Or I guess I just didn’t realize I was feeling that way about somebody until I had to watch my own avatar act it out.”

“Just to be _super_ clear, we are talking about me getting your dick hard, here? That’s what we’re talking about.”

“Jesus Christ, Shane.” Ryan exhales through his nose and tosses his head back onto the back of the couch. “Yes, that’s what we’re—yes.”

Shane nods.

“And also getting my feelings-dick hard.”

Shane’s nod makes a seamless transition to a vociferous shake of dissent.

“No, Ryan. Absolutely not. You think you can just say _feelings-dick_ and get away with it because you’re being vulnerable and open and shit? A man has to draw the line.”

Now that it’s all out there in the open, now that Ryan’s said it and Shane has acknowledged it, some of the tension in the air fades away. Maybe, Ryan thinks, things can go back to normal now. He can nurse this crush for a little while and then let it go. Maybe eventually he will be able to look at Shane and not ache, not stumble over jokes trying to impress him, not want to haul him down by the collar and—

“Right,” Shane says, like that settles it, “well, good.”

Shane leans forward, pulls Ryan up and in, long fingers curling around the back of his neck _like_ _a_ _goddamn mind-reader_ , and kisses him hard on the mouth.

*

Most things in life, Ryan finds, end up being just a little harder than they need to be. Just that little bit tougher, or more stressful, or complicated in some new “what is this fresh hell” kind of way that he wasn’t anticipating. And Ryan’s—he’s well-practiced at anticipating trouble, so that’s saying something.

Not this, though. This, lying on the couch, half on top of Shane and half threatening to tip over the edge onto the floor, applying his own mouth strenuously to Shane’s like the world is gonna end if he stops—this is easy.

Shane is groaning under Ryan, into Ryan’s mouth, into Ryan’s ear. Ryan always assumed (and he’s thought about it at length) that Shane would be quiet, stoic and in-control. Like a human version of one of those dogs that just looks at you with serious eyes but can’t bark.

But Shane, it emerges, has a lot of bark. He’s a steady stream of words and sounds, each one of which Ryan wants to meticulously catalogue for later use, and to remind himself that this actually happened.

“Fucking, just fuckin’—come here, where are you going,” Shane mumbles, pulling Ryan fully on top of him with two firm hands on Ryan’s ass, halting the slow slide into disaster and lower back pain.

“I’m here,” Ryan says, pulling back to pant into Shane’s neck. This is all moving very fast, and he’s no prude but he’s also trying to process the very specific and shocking feeling of Shane’s dick pressing against his through too many layers of clothing.

There are two plays here, Ryan thinks. There’s the smart play, which is to sit up, pull back, grab them both glasses of water, and say something like _thanks for the makeouts,_ _we should grab dinner some time_. And then there’s the reckless play, the think-with-your-cock play, which Ryan already knows he’s going to go with before he’s even had the time to think up the outline of a pro/con list.

Ryan’s sick of being outclassed by the Sim version of himself. He’s tired of watching Sim Ryan live his best life, of clicking Woohoo and watching that fictionalized goober reap the rewards.

Ryan lets his hand drift between them, down Shane’s chest, to his stomach. Shane’s got just the littlest belly, a light trail of hair starting below his navel, and Ryan rubs the warm skin of his palm against it like he could start a fire. Shane doesn’t say _stop_ , doesn’t pull away, so Ryan pops the button on his jeans and goes for the zip.

“Hey, dude, this is fast,” Shane says. “You’ve—are you sure? Only I can’t stand it if you decide you can’t look at me in the morning, which even you have to admit sounds like something you would do.”

“Who are you calling _fast_?” Ryan asks, and shoves his hand down Shane’s pants. Shane’s hard under Ryan’s hand, and Ryan curls fingers around his cock through the fabric and feels it twitch up to meet him.

“I just want you to know that you don’t have to jump off a bridge just because all the other Sims are doing it. There’s no shame in taking things slow,” Shane says through gritted teeth, the very last thing he wants to be saying.

“There’s no orgasms in it either,” Ryan points out, he thinks reasonably, and Shane seems to think so too because he’s shifting Ryan to the side and standing up to pull off his jeans. He looks nuts, standing there in Ryan’s living room naked from the waist down and fully-dressed from the waist up, hair a wild mess, but mostly Ryan doesn’t notice. Mostly Ryan just thinks, _yup, that’s a big ol’ dick_ , and then he tips off the couch onto his knees to figure out what to do with it.

It takes some trial and error, some reconfiguring and laughing and coughing, but Shane doesn’t seem to mind one bit. He puts a hand on Ryan’s head, fingers woven in his hair, and offers up a steady stream of validating noises and muttered encouragement because that’s just the kind of guy Shane is.

“That’s—ugh, that’s perfect,” Shane hisses around his fist. “Somebody’s been doing his homework. Getting tips from Sim Ryan?”

Ryan pulls off, gripping at the base so the head of Shane’s dick is just barely brushing against his bottom lip when he talks.

“Maybe I’ve just _gotten_ so many blowjobs that I’m, like, already an expert.”

Shane laughs, and then his laugh stutters and dies when Ryan tries to swallow him down again, deeper this time. “Yeah, Ry, maybe you are.”

Ryan’s not, but he still feels like one a desperate, sweaty minute later, when Shane tugs at his hair to pull him off and Ryan just shakes his head and keeps going until Shane’s coming down his throat. There are no little pink hearts, no bursts of fireworks. Just the smell and taste and sound of Shane, all fighting for future control of Ryan’s sense memories.  

After Shane topples bonelessly onto the couch next to him, Ryan spends a solid thirty seconds just laughing, stunned, on his knees on the floor of his apartment. He ducks his head into his chest, braces his hands on his thighs, and _laughs_.

“Should I be insulted?” Shane wonders out loud, reaching out with a long arm to pet Ryan’s hair, to run a finger down the back of his neck and dip under the neck of his t-shirt. He doesn’t sound that concerned. Maybe this is even normal, Ryan thinks, as far as first blowjob experiences go. “What do you say when a guy sucks you off and then goes full hyena? What’s my move here?”

It’s not that Ryan’s laughing at _Shane_. It’s that the circumstances are so ridiculous that no one would ever believe him. If this thing lasts, if it has legs, they’re going to need to come up with a better story.

“Sorry,” he gasps out, getting his laughter and his breathing under control. “I’m just having an out-of-body experience.”

“Spooky,” Shane says. “Get back in your body, and then get your body back up here so I can get you off.”

Ryan comes back to himself. He gets his body back up there.

*

A week later they do go out to dinner, one of those nice “New American” places with small plates where all the drinks have elderflower liqueur in them and cost $15. This is actually the part Ryan was most nervous about, not the sex, but he needn’t have been.

Shane sits across from him, looking all tall and smiley, and Ryan thinks again what a bad approximation Sim Shane had been. All wrong, really; none of the charm, not nearly enough nose or eyebrow, and totally incapable of looking at Sim Ryan with this soft sort of interest. Nobody’s fault, of course. Just a limitation of the medium.

That night, after they’ve taken each other apart again and Shane’s snoring, sprawled out naked on Ryan’s best sheets with his feet dangling off the end of the bed, Ryan sneaks back out into the living room. He opens up his computer and he fires up The Sims. He says one final goodbye to Sim Ryan and Sim Shane, who are fighting in the kitchen—which seems a fitting end—and then he uninstalls the game.

It was fun, but he doesn’t need it any more.


End file.
